What you need to know about Ultrabooks

The new breed of notebooks are built to take on the tablet

Tablets dominate the headlines, but ultrabooks are nearly as light, start up as quickly, and offer the screens, keyboards, memory and processing power of full-fledged computers. If you’re in the market for a laptop, these are the ones you should be looking at.

The basics What does ultra even mean here? This category has settled on a nearly universal configuration, with only minor variations. In most cases, including our test units, you get a 13-inch screen, solid-state drive (SSD), 13 x 9-inch footprint and a maximum weight of 1.5kg.

What do I give up? All but the essentials, which means no optical drive and a minimal collection of ports (usually just a couple of USB ports, a video output and a headphone jack). Storage is generally less, since the hard drives are usually solid state. And the slim profile often means awkward keyboards. Processing power can be stripped down too.

So what am I gaining? Portability. Portability. Portability. The weight and dimensions make a bigger difference than you’d think. Unless you’re rendering 3D models or playing high-end games, the leaner specs won’t hurt much. And since more and more of our data is moving to the cloud, the smaller drive isn’t a big deal at all. You’ll be fine.

Buying Advice Ultrabooks aren’t for everyone. Price is the major obstacle, and if you’re usually tied to your desk, the cost might not be worth it. But if you spend the day hopping from client to client – or café to café – go ultra and don’t look back. If you require high-end performance, make sure you get an Intel Core i5 or i7 CPU. And pay close attention to the screen – brightness varies wildly.

Acer Aspire S3 Acer doesn’t hide the fact that it’s targeting the Air, and, in fairness, the cheaper S3 comes darn close. Still, there are trade-offs, including middling LCD brightness and performance that’s about 50 per cent slower than the Air. Acer also saves money by using a puny 20GB SSD for system files and going with a slower traditional drive for apps and data.

Hot – Even with trade-offs, its price is appealing. A 320GB disc drive means the most storage. Not – Relatively slow processing speeds. Awkward keyboard, with tiny arrow keys and no backlighting. Flimsy build quality.

Samsung Series 9 Includes an all-metal chassis, a blazingly bright screen, a 128GB SSD, and an uncannily familiar keyboard and click pad positioning. Despite the nice trappings, it falls way short. It’s about 30 per cent slower than the Air. That’s inexcusable, given the price. We also weren’t big fans of the plastic-feeling paint job.

Sony Vaio Z Series Sony’s ultrabook goes ultra-luxe, with a price-is-no-object build that combines the fastest processing speeds with the lightest weight – it’s a full quarter-kilo lighter than the Air. The 2.7 GHz Core i7 processor gives it top-end performance.

Hot – 15 per cent faster than the Air on apps. Plug in the base station and you can use it for gaming. Not – Dismal touchpad placement. Awkward hinge design makes opening the lid difficult, and the price left us in tears.

Apple Macbook Air The Air is the gold standard against which all ultrabooks are judged. This 1.3kg wedge of metal boasts a 1.7 GHz Core i5 processor, a 128GB solidstate drive and construction quality that no one else remotely approaches. While many ultrabooks are delicate, the sturdy Air welcomes abuse.

Hot – Has power to spare, nearly equalling the more expensive Vaio. Sparklingly bright screen. Not – Fan whines loudly under load. Sharp metal edges are rough; tapered design is less functional than it seems.